Sacrifice
by PedanticCurmudgeon
Summary: Sakura had no other alternatives left to her. If she didn't think of something fast, she would lose Naruto to Akatsuki, and that was something she dearly wanted to avoid. If she had to make a deal with Itachi, so be it. On hiatus until further notice.
1. Prologue: Eyes

**Disclaimerrrrrrrrr: Listen up closely, cuz I'm not repeating this. I. Do NOT. Own Naruto. End of story. **_**Comprende?**_

Prologue: Eyes

It was happening again, and this time, there was no Naruto to wake her up and comfort her.

Something though—Something had changed. This was and wasn't her usual nightmare. The eyes were still there, yes, hovering in the background like bloody globes—like foxfire—luring her to her death, but something had changed in them. Something had changed them from emotionless, distant, and distinctly masculine and had softened them, saddened them. It was as though their owner were trying to convey a message with those red, red orbs. She was still running—it seemed _that_ wouldn't change—but instead of away from the eyes, she was running toward them. Her hands were cold, nearly numb, and her legs felt like lead, but she pushed them onward, feeling desperation for the first time and wondering why that was. She wasn't stumbling, that would come later, but she felt that if she stopped—that if she didn't reach the person who owned those eyes—then something terrible would happen, and there would be nothing she could do about it.

Something was not right.

What? She tried to ask. What is going on? But no sound would come out. Her mouth only gaped—open and closed—like a fish's when it was gasping, dying, on land, lured by bait it could not resist.

She knew it was a dream—knew that _she_ should be the one in control and not the helpless victim—but it was out of her hands. She could only watch in horror as one of her leaden legs caught on an upraised tree root and she fell…

Fell…

Fell…

The ground rushed up to meet her, to embrace her body, and the world turned black.

She woke—how strange, to wake in a dream—and found herself strapped to a metal examination table. It was cold, cold, cold; she could feel it through her weatherproof garments, creeping in through her skin to settle in her bones. She wanted to scream for help; to cry in anger and frustration; to wake up, because this dream was becoming too, too, too real. She wriggled, wanting to escape because she knew in her heart that if she stayed she would surely die, but the leather straps were unyielding, merciless.

Why? Why is this happening?

A shadow moved in the blackness surrounding her table—her prison—and Sasuke appeared, looking as emotionless as he had a month ago. A month ago when she and he had met and fought, and the nightmares had begun—most of them the same, all of them involving her death.

Naruto. Naruto blamed himself. It didn't matter that she should have told him she was going to town. It didn't matter that it had been her fault—her fault for trying to corner Sasuke alone and ending up cornered herself. Naruto was Naruto and he would blame himself always for failing that first time.

"Hello, Sakura."

It was his voice, the one she had longed to hear for so many years—but something was wrong.... Something was different.

Nothing in the dream was as it should be.

"Who are you?" she asked, and her green eyes widened in shock as she realized she was finally allowed to speak.

"Who?" the not-Sasuke asked, looking amused. "Who indeed." His form shimmered—melted—was replaced by someone whose face had haunted her dreams far more than his fair share of times.

Someone whose smile meant the world must be ending because no Uchiha would ever, _ever_ smile like that—that sad, lonely smile that made her want to cry.

Uchiha Itachi.

"I'm sorry, Sakura." he whispered, his lips ghosting across her cheek before he turned to smoke and disappeared, leaving her to ponder just what he had meant.

There was a sudden prick in her arm, then the feeling of something thin piercing her skin until finally, finally, it reached a vein.

Her heart, which had begun thumping very quickly at the sight of the elder Uchiha brother, began to slow, much to her alarm.

Lubdub. Lubdub.

She was feeling lightheaded suddenly.

Lub...dub. Lub... dub.

Her eyelids were getting heavier.

Lub...

Dub...

Lub...

...Dub...

...

...

She couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. It was just too much effort, and she was suddenly feeling very peaceful...

_I forgive you..._

Sakura woke, eyes wide and unfocused, pale skin covered with a glistening sheen of cold sweat. She was trembling, her head felt woozy.

She settled her head over her chest, just where her heart would be, and was comforted by its rhythmic beating. It was not the first time she had had to reassure herself this way, and she knew it wouldn't be the last time.

"Kiba..." she whispered, placing the crook of her elbow over her eyes so that she didn't have to look at her ceiling; she'd painted it sky blue in a fit of insanity (as her friends referred to it) after being trapped inside by rain for two weeks. Kiba, rowdy, slightly annoying Kiba, had been the only one who hadn't laughed, because he had understood perfectly.

I'm sorry.

_"I'm sorry, Sakura."_

Sakura gasped, sat up, sent her blankets and pillows flying. She fumbled with her couch cushions, feeling for the kunai knife she kept under one of them. It sliced her thumb open when her grasping hand finally found it under the middle cushion, but she ignored the stinging pain to grab the handle and scan her living room warily.

Nothing. She'd been imagining things.

Why, though, had Itachi said that?

Even more troubling: why she had forgiven him.

She lay back, body still tense, healed the cut on her thumb, and decided to leave the analytical shit to Shikamaru.

------

**A/N: liked this slightly changed up version better. R&R please!**


	2. Chapter 1: Nightmare Become Reality

Disclaimer: Am I Masashi Kishimoto? No.

Chapter 1: Nightmare become reality

Morning found Sakura on the hard floor of her living room, curled tightly into a ball beneath her blanket.

A tapping at her living room window was what finally woke her from her slumber, and she cracked one eye to see who her visitor was.

Then closed it again tightly. At this ungodly hour, she did _not_ want to see Konoha's number one maverick ninja in his blindingly bright orange outfit.

Naruto opened the window and poked his head inside the apartment cautiously. "Sakura, we're having breakfast with Shikamaru, and then Tsunade has a mission for us."

"What time is it?" Sakura asked, pulling her blanket over her head to block out the bright sunlight.

"About… six o'clock." Naruto said, checking the time with the round, red clock Sakura kept on her living room wall.

Sakura raised an eyebrow. _How in the hell did they get _Naruto _up at six in the morning??_

"Okay." She sighed, giving up on sleep. "Give me about twenty minutes."

"Okay! See you at Shikamaru's!" Naruto was grinning; she could tell by the way his voice sounded.

_Heh. Sucker._ Sakura was a master at falling asleep for set amounts of time. She managed to get another half hour of sleep then hopped into the shower for a long scrub. By the time she stepped out of her bathtub, wrapped only in a towel, they'd sent Ino to look for her.

"Sakura, you missed breakfast." Ino said, trying to sound stern.

"I took a reeeeallly long shower." Sakura said, laughing.

"Like anyone's gonna believe that but Naruto. By the way, Tsunade wants you in her office in ten minutes. Better hop to." Ino grinned cheekily at her friend before teleporting out of the apartment, leaving Sakura to scramble for her mission clothes.

"Today's mission is A-rank." Tsunade began, tossing Sakura the mission scroll. "There have been rumors of Akatsuki in the Land of Earth, and I want you and Naruto to investigate."

"Lady Tsunade, if this is Akatsuki-related, why are you sending Naruto? We don't want him walking right into their hands." Sakura said, avoiding Naruto's shocked gaze to stare steadily at her mentor.

"Because the rumors say that one of the Akatsuki members sighted is using Sharingan." Tsunade didn't need to say any more; if Itachi had been sighted in the Land of Earth, then it was possible Sasuke would show up there in pursuit. In fact, it was highly probable.

"I expect a full report on your return."

"Yes, ma'am!"

With that, the two members of team 7 were gone, eager to prepare for what was probably going to be a long mission.

***

The forest was much too quiet for Sakura's liking. Not a twig moved, not an owl screeched, not one single cricket was trying to tell the temperature with its chirping. And to Sakura, who'd been on plenty of field missions like this, it meant trouble—Trouble that was not entirely unexpected because she and Naruto were currently camping in hostile territory on the way home from their mission. The loyalties of grass shinobi were known to change when more favorable odds showed up elsewhere, thus it was safer to stay under the radar when in Grass Country.

Sakura withdrew a kunai from her hip pouch, preparing to investigate, when Naruto stirred in his sleeping bag.

"Whassamatter?" he slurred, voice thick with sleep.

"I'm not sure yet. Wait here for me, I'll signal you if there's trouble." Sakura bit her lip nervously. What if it was Akatsuki? They were precisely the reason she and Naruto were currently camped where they were, and she had no desire to hand Naruto to them on a silver platter.

Naruto was immediately alert and on his feet. "No way, Sakura. If anyone's gonna check for trouble, it's gonna be me!"

"Naruto!" Sakura barked, her bright green eyes scanning the darkness between the trees. "Shut. Up." She had begun to shake, adrenaline coursing through her veins because she knew—she _knew—_she had heard a twig snap.

Naruto opened his mouth again and Sakura leveled a glare at him that was so fierce he clamped it shut again quickly.

Sakura made a slicing motion with the kunai in front of her neck to make her threat clear then slipped quietly into the surrounding trees.

It took a minute or so for her eyes to adjust to the pitch blackness enveloping her, but once they had, she still wasn't much better off; the trees and their branches were so full of leaves that it was nearly impossible for any light to penetrate through them and reach the forest floor. Thankfully, however, Sakura had learned—through trial and error—that she could enhance her eyesight by focusing her chakra there; she had also sharpened her hearing and sense of smell by training with a blindfold on for a month with Kakashi, Naruto, and… Kiba.

All her senses fully aware, she climbed the nearest tree and crouched, cat-like, on the lowest branch—which was a good ten feet above her head—kunai at the ready. She scanned the forest floor below and then the canopy above and found nothing out of the ordinary. Positive that nothing apart from a screech owl and several dormice were near, she hopped lightly down.

That was when the twig snapped not fifteen feet away.

Sakura could have written it off as nothing more than forest noise, but she knew better: not long after the twig had snapped, she had heard the sound of crunching leaves, which told her with absolute certainty that she was not alone in the forest.

She approached the source of the noise cautiously, her right hand gloved with the special chakra-conducting glove Tsunade had given her. When she reached the spot—and she knew she had by the scuffed up leaves and torn shred of cloth on a low-hanging branch—no one was there. She fingered the cloth with her ungloved hand and recognized it as a bandage of the sort that shinobi used, and lifted it to her nose. It smelled of fish and ocean spray, something she hadn't smelled before, but something her mind was raising a little red flag at.

Puzzled, she slipped it into a small plastic baggie she normally used when she gathered herbs for Tsunade, and began to turn.

The fish and ocean spray scent was suddenly right beside her, accompanied by a much smaller, sunflower scent.

"Wha—" she began, preparing to slice at the larger of the two beings beside her, and found her wrist in a _very_ large grip.

"Too slow, kunoichi." The fish-ocean spray scent sneered. "Itachi, what should we do with her?"

_Itachi?_

"Uchiha Itachi!" she gasped.

_No. Oh, no. This is not happening. Hoshigaki Kisame and Uchiha Itachi CANNOT be here._

"Let go, Kisame!" she yelled, hoping her use of the man's name would startle him into loosening his grip just long enough for her to wriggle free.

"What the hell? How do you know my name?" Kisame demanded, tightening his grip on her wrist so much that she could no longer hold her kunai. It fell to the fertile forest soil below and embedded itself in the leaf litter by her right foot.

"Ah. I remember. You are friends with the Kyuubi jinchuriki." Itachi said slowly, dark amusement lacing his voice. "Kisame, you would not know her because you and she have never met."

"So she knows me by association with you?" Kisame asked. "And friends with the Kyuubi, no less. So maybe that little blonde brat is around here somewhere."

"A safe assumption." Itachi agreed, "but we should confirm it by asking this kunoichi first. It would not do to attack the wrong person."

Sakura scowled and began gathering chakra into the sole of her boot, hoping Kisame wouldn't notice until it was too late.

Luck was not on her side: Kisame sensed her chakra moving and released her wrist to draw the vastly oversized sword on his back; he swung the weapon down, grazing her arm and leg. Her chakra dissipated immediately.

"I am not sure what she was going to do but, judging from the amount of chakra she was gathering, I am certain it was going to be big." Kisame frowned at her, clearly reevaluating what he had first thought about her.

"Hn."

"Fish-faced bastard." Sakura hissed, ignoring the pain in her arm and leg and surging the chakra into her fist quickly before slamming it into Kisame's forearm. She was gratified to hear the bones snap and his loud swears; before he can retaliate, she gathers chakra into her fist once more and hits him in the chin with an uppercut, effectively breaking his jaw. Now sure that the Kiri Swordsman wasn't going to be much of a threat anymore, she turned to deal with Itachi and…

Found that he had disappeared.

_Where the hell did he go?_ She wondered, sniffing the air experimentally and finding no trace of the only other survivor of the Uchiha clan.

Suddenly, with much flapping and cawing, a flock of crows swooped down upon her and surrounded her, beating her with their wings; then, just as suddenly, they were gone, and Sakura found herself bound head to foot with chakra enforced ropes.

"You dirty—" she snarled, realizing she had been in a genjutsu.

"Where is Naruto?" Itachi asked, one eyebrow raised ever-so-slightly.

"Like hell I'd tell you bastards where to find him." Sakura said, her voice low and menacing.

"Where is Naruto?" Itachi repeated firmly, staring Sakura in the eye. Sakura found herself marveling at the blood-red pools, wanting to obey, _needing_ to obey, opened her mouth and—

_**WHAT THE **_**HELL**_** DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING???**_ Inner Sakura screeched.

It was enough to snap Sakura out of whatever jutsu Itachi had her in.

Itachi looked taken-aback for a moment before his face returned to its normal apathetic expression.

"Go. To. Hell." Sakura said, deliberately making each word into a sentence.

Behind her, Kisame guffawed loudly, "Too late, kunoichi, we've already been to hell and back!"

"My name is _not_ 'kunoichi'." Sakura hissed. "It's Haruno Sakura."

"The Hokage's apprentice…" Itachi spoke softly, and Kisame's jaw dropped.

"No fucking way! _This_ little chit is the apprentice of one of the Sannin?"

"Naruto is as well, you will recall." Itachi reminded the older man, scrutinizing Sakura so thoroughly she felt violated.

"True." Kisame conceded.

"Listen." Sakura said suddenly, realizing she was almost out of options. "Leave Naruto alone for the remainder of our mission and come after him later."

It was desperate, and demeaning, but she had no other alternatives left to her. She could only hope they'd had enough excitement subduing her that they might consider her request.

"And?" Kisame asked. "What do we get in return?"

"Nothing. You get to spend that much longer chasing after him." Sakura said quickly, realizing that it wasn't a very good deal for the nuke-nin.

"We've already spent a shitload of time looking for him up 'til now!" Kisame growled. "Do you _hear_ this, Itachi? She wants us to give up for who-knows-how-long and wait for her and the jinchuriki to go on their merry fucking ways when we could have him in our grasp by dawn!" Kisame's face was turning red—or purple, rather—with anger.

"Deal."

"Wha—" Kisame looked more fish-like than ever with his mouth gaping open and closed with disbelief.

""She… interests me. In addition, this could very well work to our advantage." Itachi picked up Sakura's fallen kunai and sliced her ropes.

"Thank… you?" Sakura rubbed her wrists, which were red and raw from the ropes.

"I expect you to pay us back in kind later, Haruno Sakura. Do not forget that you owe me a debt." Itachi said, as he and Kisame disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Sakura remained rooted to the spot, unsure what the hell had happened, then took a long, roundabout route back to the camp just in case the pair had lied and were tailing her. Only when she was sure she'd not been followed did she return to the camp and a sleeping Naruto.

"Some shinobi you are!" She screeched, kicking him lightly in the ribs.

She made Naruto stand watch before she wriggled into her sleeping bag, mulling over everything she'd just experienced.

_I… interest him. I'm not sure… if that's such a good thing, coming from him._ Sleep finally took complete control of her body, and that night she dreamed she was in a bar full of faceless people who, in spite of their lack of mouths, were still filling the joint with the din of many voices. Her head buzzed and she decided to leave, only to halt at the open door, because beyond it was blackness, as if she'd reached the edge of the world. She squinted, but could not penetrate it; in fact, as she strained her eyes to see, something stirred deep within the blackness. There was the sound of flapping wings and she backpedaled, tripping over the passed out body of a drunk. She fell just as an enormous owl swooped in, and, briefly, she wondered how it had fit through the door, only to realized that the bar was gone and she was falling deep into the void.

---

A/N: Hopefully this makes up for the ultralong time I took writing it?

Bit of dream symbolism at the end for you guys.

In case you were wondering, the moment Sakura sniffed the bandage, she was in a genjutsu.

R&R.


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